From: Dean Snyder (dean.snyder@jhu.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 03 2005 - 07:13:44 CST
Gregg Reynolds wrote at 8:58 PM on Wednesday, March 2, 2005:
>Dean Snyder wrote:
>> Wrong - if you encode only one of the disambiguated usages you have
>> actually INCREASED the ambiguity of the original character; it now has
>> not only its original ambiguous significance but ALSO a new context-bound
>> unambiguous significance opposite the newly encoded character's
>> significance. In addition, there is no way to represent all three usages
>> (one ambiguous, two unambiguous) in the same plain text passage.
>>
>You lost me there. If I have <hyphen/minus> and <hyphen>, for example,
>there's nothing ambiguous about the fact that the former is ambiguous
>(bi-semous?) and the latter not. How does adding <hyphen> to the
>repertoire change the meaning of <hyphen/minus>? Have I misunderstood
>something?
If only hyphen/minus and hyphen have been encoded, and you have in a
single plain text passage a hyphen/minus along with a hyphen the hyphen/
minus has two possible interpretations - one as the original ambiguous
hyphen/minus or the other as an unambiguous minus contrasting with the
hyphen character. Thus its possible interpretations are controlled by the
presence or absence of a hyphen character in the same plain text passage.
That is context-bound and frankly stateful.
>> So you end up precisely with Jony's scenario - if you cut and exchange a
>> segment of some of this newly encoded and conformant text that happens to
>> have only examples of the original character in it, you now have no
>> context with which to decide how this character is to be interpreted
>> downstream; because the SOLE disambiguation trigger in plain text is the
>> PRESENCE of at least one of the newly encoded disambiguated characters.
>
>Lost me again. Be patient. Are you saying that the presence of e.g.
><hyphen> in a string of text somehow affects the meaning of
><hyphen/minus>?
It affects the number of choices available - the presence of a hyphen
adds one more choice for interpretation; its absence leaves you guessing
as to its usage (is hyphen/minus being used contrastively with hyphen or
not?).
Respectfully,
Dean A. Snyder
Assistant Research Scholar
Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project
Computer Science Department
Whiting School of Engineering
218C New Engineering Building
3400 North Charles Street
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218
office: 410 516-6850
cell: 717 817-4897
www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi/
http://users.adelphia.net/~deansnyder/
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